Wishes (13 page)

Authors: Molly Cochran

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Love & Romance, #Girls & Women, #General

“Of course you will. And now I will too. I’ll be able to make a life for us.”

“We have a life,” I said. “Two lives.”

“Not like what Shaw Enterprises can give us.”

I backed away. I wasn’t part of this deal. “Don’t say
us
.”

He looked annoyed. “All right. Me. I’m getting a big break, bigger than I can even explain to you right now. You just have to trust me.”

“You already said that,” I said.

But I did. I would trust Peter with my life. I
have
trusted him with my life, more than once. Peter wasn’t the problem.

Jeremiah Shaw was.

Everything changed after that. A tailor came up from Boston to make clothes for Peter, and just about every day some fabulous electronic gizmo would show up in the mail. One of Jeremiah’s assistants took Peter into New York every two weeks just to get his hair cut. He had a standing meeting with Aldritch, the Shaw butler, who gave him etiquette lessons. For a while, he even moved into the Shaw mansion.

It was all pretty disgusting, and didn’t accomplish much except to estrange Peter from the townies. The Muffies, of course, loved it. They judged everyone on things like clothes and hair and which generation smartphone they owned.

But then, they’d liked Peter even before his two-hundred-dollar haircuts and True Religion jeans. And who wouldn’t? He was six feet tall, with honey-blond hair and gray eyes, and long legs and a thin but muscular body, and soft lips and skin that blushed easily, and big hands and a kind of sexy-without-meaning-to-be walk, and a soft voice, and thick dark eyelashes. Did I mention that he always smelled good? Really, really good.

And, hard as it was for me to believe, he loved me.

To give him credit, Peter had used the technology available to him through the Shaw laboratories to do a lot of good in our community. There were quite a few people in Whitfield who owed Peter their lives after he’d quelled the kind of crisis that could only happen in a town like Whitfield—but more about that later.

Back at Peter’s megabuck non-graduation party, the grounds were lit by thousands of twinkling lights. At around ten, the band changed and the music turned into old people’s dance tunes. That was when most of my friends left—I guess they were afraid the musicians were going to swing into a rendition of the Hokey Pokey—and the waiters brought out the hard liquor. I wandered over to where Peter had spent most of the evening, to see if he would dance with me. The French girls, I noticed, were clustered around him.

“Where is everyone?” he asked as we walked toward the dance floor.

“I think they went for pizza,” I said.

“Chicken hearts,” Peter said as he twirled me decisively. Jeremiah had made him take dancing lessons in preparation for the party, along with the tutoring in etiquette.

I guessed Peter could be a wiener, after all.

“We’d have had a lot more fun at Hattie’s Kitchen,” I said. He only smiled. I tried to make the best of things. “At least we didn’t have to work tonight.” As after-school employees, Peter and I had to serve and clean up at every party at Hattie’s. At least this one was labor-free.

“My uncle wanted to introduce me to the people he works with,” he said.

“Who work for him, you mean.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“So you’re like the son Jeremiah never had?”

He shrugged.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “But
why
?” I demanded, as if it were the first time I’d asked him that question. “Why you? Why now?”

Peter looked uncomfortable. “Maybe he just likes me.”

I stared at him. He didn’t meet my eyes. “Right,” I said coldly. If he thought I was that dumb, I wasn’t even going to argue about it. “That must be it.”

“Try not to be cynical, Katy,” he said quietly. Then he smiled. “You look beautiful.”

I looked away.

“Like always,” he said.

God. No wonder I love him.

“I think I’ll be able to get away before too long,” he whispered in my ear. “Maybe we could go—”

“Excuse me,” someone said as an ancient hand separated us. It was Jeremiah Shaw. Of course.

“Pardon me for interrupting, Peter.” He stared at me. “Ummm . . .”

“Katy,” I reminded him.

“Yes,” Jeremiah said, his momentary notice of me already a distant memory. “Peter, I want you to meet someone . . .” He led Peter away, leaving me behind without a backward glance.

Also by Molly Cochran

Legacy

Poison

Coming in Fall 2014

Seduction

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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The text for this book is set in Bodoni.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cochran, Molly.

Wishes / Molly Cochran.—First edition.

pages cm

Summary: Katy Ainsworth, a student at a Massachusetts boarding school full of witches and magic,

gets more than she bargains for when she finds a fairy in the woods.

“A Paula Wiseman book.”

ISBN 978-1-4814-2165-2 (eBook)

[1. Witches—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Fairies—Fiction. 4. Boarding schools—Fiction.

5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Massachusetts—Fiction.] I. Title